Team BMW Le Mans Hour 15 Report

Circuit de la Sarthe

After 15 hours: Team BMW Motorsport running fifth and sixth at dawn in the Le Mans 24 Hours.

Le Mans, 12th June 2011. Team BMW Motorsport is still laying in wait at the 24 Hours of Le Mans (FR). Shortly after dawn broke at the “Circuit de la Sarthe”, the no. 55 BMW M3 GT is running fifth in the LM GTE classification. The sister car number 56 follows in sixth, with nine more hours to go in the 79th running of this endurance classic.

Augusto Farfus (BR) and Jörg Müller (DE) were on duty after midnight in car number 55. Despite two unscheduled tyre changes they still made progress in their BMW M3 GT. Soon Dirk Werner (DE) will be back at the wheel, tackling his second stint of the race.

Joey Hand (US) and Andy Priaulx (GB) also showed a consistent pace. However, as the competition got through the night without major problems, setting equally quick lap times, they didn’t succeed in making it back to the top-five. Dirk Müller (DE) sat in the no. 56 car when dawn broke, being the quickest man in the GTE field for large parts of his stint. The progress was hampered by yet another safety-car period which began shortly before 05:00hrs. After 15 minutes the lights went green again in France.

Augusto Farfus (car number 55): “Just the same as at the beginning of the race, I did a very long stint. I enjoyed it, as it’s something special for every driver to be at the wheel during the night in the Le Mans 24 Hours. I tried not to push too hard and save the tyres a bit, in order to go at a consistent pace. This worked quite well.”

Andy Priaulx (car number 56): “It was a tough night and the last two laps were really hard. However, it was a good stint although I had a couple of excursions. It is good experience for me to be driving round here in the dark. It is so fast, you can’t look far enough ahead so it is like everything is come up at you really quickly. In a word tough, but good for your driving.”